Lionheart's Arrest
by KOakaKO
Summary: I got this idea from Cimar-WildeHopps, so thank you for that Cimar. :) Just what DID happen between the flushing of the toilet and Lionheart's actual arrest? What were Nick and Judy doing in that period of time?


Nick burst up out of the water, looking all around him. "Carrots! Hopps! JUDY!" She came to the surface suddenly, about ten yards away, holding her phone up in that plastic bag she'd dropped it into. "We've got to tell Bogo!", she yelled. Nick felt such relief when she surfaced that it took a second for her words to register in his mind. Then he suddenly remembered that they still needed to get out of the water, before anything else. He wondered for a second why everything else had left his mind over his concern for the rabbit, but he shook his head and decided to think about it later.

He looked all around again, trying to figure out which direction to go. After looking up at the drainpipe and the water pouring over the side of the cliff he knew which way to look, and found he could just barely see the rocky mess at the edge of the mist-covered water - near the building and away from the waterfalls. Cliffs on one side and waterfall on the other, it seemed to be the only place they could safely get back to land.

He waved his paw at her and pointed, shouting, "This way!" She seemed a bit confused, looking at what seemed a random direction to her, but she started swimming that way regardless. Nick watched her start off in the right direction, and had a brief flash of memory from when he was in elementary school that rabbits didn't have the good night vision that foxes and other nocturnal species just took for granted.

Nick starting swimming for the rocky shoreline nearby, splashing around in his haphazard way. Taking a breath whenever he could shift his muzzle up out of the water. He'd learned to swim by going to the community pool in the summertimes of his youth, but it wasn't what anyone would call "graceful". He looked over at Judy briedfly, to see that she was stretched out in a clean, streamlined shape - pulling strongly for the shore. He snorted a bit of water out of his nose and splashed a bit faster. It figures that she would even -swim- by the training manual.

She must not have been able to see where they were going yet, because she had angled over with the obvious intent to swim beside him and let him guide her the right direction. Not only was the noise and mist from the waterfall disorienting, but it was also dark enough out here that she likely couldn't see the rocky ledge up ahead of them yet. He noticed that she had both paws free, so she must've stuffed her phone in a pocket or something. After that fall, and holding it up for him to see, it was obvious she wasn't going to drop it or lose it.

Despite the graceless splashing of Nick's swimming, his longer arms and larger paws got him to land first. Being on all fours, he shook himself off as hard as he could and scrabbled around in a half-circle to hold out a paw and help Judy get up on the rocks. Again, he felt that faint bite on his heart, of concern and worry for this rabbit he'd only met a couple days ago. Just -where- these thoughts and feelings were coming from he didn't know. He'd only had himself to worry about for the past 20 years, so he didn't really recognize what it was. It felt like he was losing control of some part of himself, something that he never did, so he clamped down on that odd feeling and decided again that he'd think about it later.

Judy had shaken herself off too, once she was up on the rocks, but it was pretty obvious that she couldn't shake the water out of her fur quite as vigorously as he had - so she stood there dripping, shivering a bit and pulling her phone out from behind her somewhere to start looking it over inside it's sealed bag.

Nick briefly considered putting his shirt around her, but it was too flimsy to do much good. Instead he just stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms and tail around her, pulling her in close to his chest. Judy looked down at his tail, then up over her shoulder, and said, "Nick, what are you doing?"

He just layed his chin down on her head, between her ears and smiled, saying, "You're shivering, Carrots. I don't have a blanket with me, right now, but at least I can keep you from getting hypothermia." She looked as if she was about to say something, then just shook her head a little and went back to poking at her phone.

"He -is- warm...", she thought to herself, leaning back into him just a bit. "Must be that thick, fluffy fur of his." She paused for a second and wondered why she'd just thought of him as "fluffy". She'd only met this fox a couple days ago.

She pressed on the phone face harder, being careful of her small but sharp claws, and finally got it to light up. "Oh, good! It works through the plastic. I didn't want to take it out, with all this water everywhere." She didn't know Bogo's office number, but she did have the number of the front desk. After a few rings she heard Clawhauser answer, his voice a bit muffled inside the plastic bag.

"Clawhauser! This is Officer Judy Hopps! We need backup, right away! I need you to go and tell Bogo that we've found all the missing mammals!" She listened to what seemed like an excited reply, but the noise from the waterfall was too much for even her sensitive hearing. Especially with the phone being in that bag.

"I'm standing next to a waterfall, Clawhauser! I can't hear what you're saying! Just go get Bogo and as many officers as you guys can round up! We're at the bottom end of South Canyon road, at an old hospital called 'Cliffside'! We'll watch the front door until you get here, but get here as quick as you can! We were spotted a few minutes ago!"

She and Nick both could hear the big cheetah clearly and loudly say, "Ten minutes!" several times before he hung up. She quickly tucked the phone away again, making Nick wonder where it went. "I'm up against her back", he thought, "...and she reached right between us. Where did she put the darn thing?"

Judy cleared her throat and looked up at him again. "Nick. I appreciate you being my blanket and all, but we really need to climb up to the road now."

He felt a bit reluctant to let her go, for some reason, but he slowly unwrapped himself from her. "But Carrots...", he whined, "I was getting warm too, you know."

She just smiled and patted him on the chest, saying, "Well now we're going rock climbing, so I bet you'll warm up just fine." After turning away from him and starting to carefully crawl up the rocky slope toward the road, she just barely suppressed her urge to giggle. "Judith Laverne", she thought to herself, "...we have things to do! This is no time to start feeling silly!" She glanced behind her to ensure that he was following her up the rocks, and shivered just a little. "Although, he -was- really warm..."

As they approached the top of the slope they carefully poked their heads out from under some scrubby bushes on the side of the road, looking toward the front of the building. The two wolves who had been at the guard shack were gone, and the others over by the front doors appeared to scampering in all different directions at once. As they watched, a car appeared from around behind the building somewhere.

Nick whispered, "It looks like somebody's getting ready to leave, and probably in a big hurry." Judy glanced at him, nodding. She said, "We've -got- to keep them here until backup arrives. Augh! And I don't have stun gun or tranquilizer pistol yet." She looked all around, trying to come up with an idea of what to do. "How are we supposed to keep them from leaving? We're both unarmed."

Nick looked up and down the road, tilting his head to one side and thinking for a few seconds. Then his ears perked up as he whispered, "No Carrots, we don't need to be armed. We just need -them- to think that we're armed!" He crawled around behind their bushy hiding spot, brushing his paws around on the ground. "Ah... here we go. I think these will work."

Judy heard some cracking and snapping of branches behind her. Looking back she hissed, "Nick! What are you doing back there?"

He shuffled forward, past her and partway on the shoulder of the road. As he dipped his finger in some light-colored mud, and seemed to be rubbing his other paw with it, he muttered, "You'll see, in just a minute..." There was another crack of a small branch breaking, along with more dipping and swiping of the whitish mud, then he carefully shuffled back under the bushes where Judy was.

"Ta da!", he said. "Instant weapons, Fluff. Now we're armed, so far as they know." He held out two crooked pieces of branch from the scrubby bush, which had been broken to the approximate size and shape of a stun pistol. The light-colored mud streaked and dotted down the sides and over the top made the weathered wood look a little bit like machined metal.

"Nick, that's crazy! What makes you think this is going to fool them?"

He just smiled, and said, "Because it's dark out, and those dum-dums -expect- a cop to be armed, aaaaaand we don't have to get within ten feet of them for this to work. We just need to keep them from leaving for another 5 minutes or so. Trust me, carrots. I've run a hustle with less convincing props than this before. It's all about what your mark thinks they're going to see, not what you show them."

Judy sighed and looked at the building again. The car was parked at the front door, with its doors open. It was pretty obvious they needed to do something fast, and she couldn't think of any better ideas. "Alright, Nick. We'll try it. But -stay- behind me and let me handle this. You're a civilian, and if I had any other choice I'd get you someplace safe first." She picked up the smaller of the two pieces of wood and started sneaking up along the edge of the road, toward the bridge.

Nick picked up his "pistol" and gave a smirk to her fluffy little tail as it wiggled with excitement. He murmurred quietly to himself, "Your words say one thing, Fluff, but that cute little tail is telling me something entirely different." He looked past her, at the wolves still scampering about, and started thinking of what he could do while Judy was doing her 'cop thing'.

They darted across the road and got up behind the empty guard shack, looking across what seemed like a very long bridge. Judy looked toward the front doors and seemed to be counting.

"Alright, Nick. We'll have to get across the bridge fast. Lets stay on the left rail. That will keep us out of view from 3 of those wolves. Stay about 20 feet away from any of them, so they don't get a good look at your 'pistol'. I'll go to the right, to the rear of that car, covering those 5 wolves by the door. You go to the left, and cover those 3 wolves behind it. I'll do the talking. We just need to keep them from leaving until backup gets here. That's -all- we're doing. Got it?"

He looked down at her as she looked up at him. He smiled and nodded. "It'll be a piece of cake, fluff. You convince a couple of those wolves that you mean business and the rest of the pack will just follow right behind them."

She shook her head and quietly sighed. "Just be careful, Nick. I don't want to see you get hurt doing this."

Nick chuckled as he shifted his feet and got ready to run. "Oh, it's so nice to see how much you care about me, officer Bunny Hop. Shouldn't you buy me dinner first?"

Judy dropped her eyes to the ground, drooping her ears and shaking her head. But she perked them up and looked across the bridge again, getting ready to run and holding her crooked branch as if it -was- a real stun gun. "Just be careful, Catsanova. Ready? In three, two, one..."

They took off from behind the shack, Nick right on Judy's tail. Keeping hunched down, they sped across the bridge as fast as they could run. The wolves were too busy either fussing with the car or looking at the front doors to notice the pair until they veered off to either side of the car, pointing their wooden 'weapons' at them.

"Judy Hopps, ZPD! Put your paws up or I'll lay you on the ground."

Nick shouted, "And I'm her undercover partner, Nick! So get those paws in the air before you get a million volts to the chest!"

Judy glanced at Nick and sighed again, shaking her head as she started pointing at certain timber wolves, "You, you, you, and you. Take your weapons out, -slowly-, and set them on the ground. Now!" They all seemed to be looking at one of the wolves who had a sidearm, so she kept her 'stun gun' pointed at him and stared him in the eyes until he slowly pulled his pistol out of it's holster and layed it on the ground. The three others copied his motions while he was putting his paws back up in the air.

Still looking at him, she waved her apparent weapon to her right, stating, "All of you, move over there. Just past the doors."

As they started moving, Nick said, "Yeah, and nobody make any sudden moves! Our backup will be here in about a minute, and I don't want to shoot anybody because we didn't call an ambulance!"

This time, -all- of them looked over at Nick for a moment. He just shifted his tie with his free paw and said, "Y'know... just to let you know. C'mon now, keep moving!"

While the wolves were all slowly shuffling over to the front of the building, Judy caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a fairly large mammal through the front doors. She looked that way and caught sight of a lion tail disappearing around a corner.

She was considering chasing after him but, hearing the sirens in the distance, she decided he really didn't have anywhere to run to. This building only had the one road leading up to it, and backup really would be here in a minute or two. They would be searching the entire building anyway, so she just kept the wolves in place while the sirens got louder - followed by the flashing blue and red lights coming down the road.

Once the vehicles had pulled up next to the building and parked, Judy told the first few officers she saw that these wolves needed to be placed under arrest and went to find Chief Bogo. He wasn't hard to find, and she explained to him where in the building to find the missing mammals, told him that Mayor Lionheart needed to be arrested as well, and that he had been seen by the front door but was probably hiding now. Then she showed him the video on her phone and gave it to him so the technical department could pull the videos for evidence.

Nick had quickly tossed his wooden 'pistol' off to the side when he noticed Judy doing the same. Then wandered over to sit on some steps next to the building. He had heard Judy telling the Chief that he was important to solving this case, so he wasn't concerned about being arrested by mistake. After all that had happened today, he just needed to sit down for a minute. He was feeling pretty drained, emotionally and physically. He watched Judy bouncing back and forth, talking to one officer after another, then back to Chief Bogo's side - wondering how she could be so energetic after everything that had happened.

He was leaning back on his elbows, head and ears tilted back with his eyes closed, when he heard the quick scuffle of those rabbit feet coming toward him. He smiled and perked his ears up, looking over at her, but dropped both again when he saw her arms crossed and that angry look on her face.

"Nick, -what- did I say to you before crossing the bridge?"

He looked around for some sort of salvation, but there was none nearby.

"Umm... you said to go up the left railing of the bridge?" He tried a small smile again, but dropped it when she started pounding the pavement rapidly with her foot.

"I SAID to let ME do the talking. Stun guns only have a few thousands volts and you sounded like an idiot out there."

He looked down and mumbled, "Sorry..." After a few seconds Judy gave up her stern look and bounced over to him, giving him a quick hug.

"But that was a really good idea, making a couple of fake stun guns." He gave her a tired smile as she went on, "Officers are searching the building right now, for Lionheart and that doctor, but Bogo said that I could officially arrest him and take him to the car."

Seeing her eyes wide and her ears perked high, obviously excited about the events of the day, he just had to chuckle and grin. "Carrots, I don't see where you still have any energy left after today. Is that a bunny thing, or are you just excited to arrest a Mayor?"

She looked thoughtful for a second and said, "The Mayor was a big surprise, and honestly I'm not very happy that we need to arrest him now. But I -am- happy that we solved my first big case! And I couldn't have done it without your help, either. So I just want you to know, Nick, that your help was so important to me today. And... thank you."

He smiled wide and put his paw over his heart, saying, "You're welcome, officer Fluff, and I'm glad that I was able to do my civic duty."

She snorted at that and tossed her ears to one side. "Don't pile it on too much there, Slick. But that reminds me, I need to have you have you come down to precinct one tomorrow morning. We need to write out a long statement about your involvment in all of this."

"Yeah, sure. I can get over there by nine or so." Just then another officer appeared, carrying a basket full of cups of coffee. Nick took one and thanked him, but Judy waved him off.

"Well, I've already asked Delgato to give you a ride home. So that's taken care of." She thought for a moment, one paw on her chin and her elbow in her other paw. Nick thought for a moment how cute she looked, but ammended that to 'adorable' before she waved her paw at him.

"Oh! One more thing. I almost forgot." She reached behind her and pulled out a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses and handed them to him. "I know that you lost your sunglasses going for a swim, so Delgato gave me these for you. He said they were Wolford's, but he hasn't taken them out of the door pocket in their car for the past two years."

Nick looked surprised, not the least of which because he still couldn't figure out where she was hiding these things. But he took them, looked them over, and put them on. "Thank you Carrots. The searchlights from those helicopters were starting to give me a headache." He put on the biggest, cheesiest smirk she'd ever seen and looked her with his tilted to one side. "These will make me look even handsomer, if that's possible. Just in case any reporters show up."

She snorted and giggled, holding her paw over his nose. "Don't let your head get any bigger than it already is, Slick. Just make sure you get down to the office in the morning. Your statement is going to be really important." Hearing the doors opening, she looked behind her. "Oh! I need to go. Delgato is the tiger over in the line of cruisers. He said he'd be waiting for you." She smiled at him and bounced a couple of times. "I'll see you in the morning, then. Bye!"

He shook his head, standing up slowly and smiling, following along behind her while she was talking to the Mayor and apparently arresting him. He paused for a moment, thinking what a strange day this had been. It was kind of like pretending to be a cop for the day, but they'd actually solved a real case. It had been scary and fun and exciting and challenging, and he still didn't know what to think of it all. Except that he was sure it was being with Judy all day that had made it fun. He kind of hated to admit it, but he was really starting to like that oddly energetic bunny.

He looked up, noticing suddenly that he was standing between a rhino and an elephant. Both cops. In uniform. Both looking at him like they were wondering why a sly -fox- was here, helping solve a case. He should be scared by this, but he wasn't. Cops like this are who he normally tried to avoid, but for the entire day he'd been doing -their- jobs. Even yesterday he'd been doing their jobs, although under duress. Today was by his own choice. And now he was starting to realize that it was a good feeling, to have recovered all the missing mammals and exposed the Mayor for illegaly hiding them away.

For once he had no urge to find the nearest place to hide. Middle of a crime scene, with all the flashing lights, and he knew that for once he -belonged- here. And instead of worrying what he had done wrong, he was only thinking of all the things he had done today that were -right-. He admitted to himself that this was a good feeling, and started wondering what tomorrow would bring.

To the two officers, he just held up his shiny stick-on badge, took a sip of his coffee and wandered off to find this 'Delgato' cat who could give him a ride home... 


End file.
